Page:Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope.djvu/169

 tell, three days beforehand, when a thunder-storm was coming on."

In the evening I sat with her about four hours. She was up, and had placed herself in a corner of her bed-room on a low ottoman (as it is called in England), which the Syrians name terâahah. The candle was put far back in the window recess, the light being thrown on my features, whilst it left hers in obscurity. This was her custom on almost all occasions, even when she had strangers visiting her, under pretence that she could not bear the light in her eyes, but, in fact, as I have reason to believe, to watch the play of people's countenances.

She resumed the subject of the preceding evening. I was too weary when I left her, and too busy next morning, to be able to write down her conversation, but, could I have done it, it must have left a profound impression on the reader's mind, an idea of sublimity, whether he held her visionary opinions to be the mere rhapsodies of a disordered intellect, or the deductions of great reasoning powers, aided by remarkable foresight. Her language was so forcible and sublime, that I sometimes suspended my breath, and from time to time tried to a assure myself that I was not hearkening to a superhuman voice. The smoke from our pipes by degrees filled the room, closely shut up as it was, and cast a deep gloom around us. The